Jan 17 Podcast 01: Credit Union Innovator Gene Blishen

Currency now has a podcast! It's called Credit Union Innovators and you can listen by streaming audio here on the blog or you can subscribe to it in iTunesand listen on your iPod.

The format of this and future episodes will be interviews and conversations with people that are doing good things for the credit union movement. Credit union leaders and employees and partners to the movement including vendors, technologists, strategists, designers, specialists, marketers, developers, speakers and members. Anyone with passion for the credit union movement and with something to say.

I have met so many great people involved in the credit union world and want you to get to know them too.

First up is my good friend and long-time client, Gene Blishen. Gene is the General Manager of Mount Lehman Credit Union located in Mount Lehman, British Columbia, Canada. It is a small community just north of Abbotsford and about 45 minutes east of Vancouver.

Mount Lehman Credit Union has 1,800 members and 10 employees and bucks every credit union rule! Who says you can't be small and innovative?

Gene is doing great work and is a credit union innovator to the core. Get to know him.

Fast facts about Gene

Live? Burnaby, BC

Height? 188 cm

Favorite color? Green

Favorite computer? Mac

Most embarrassing thing on a Trans-Atlantic flight? Sitting beside a rugby team

Looking for innovators

If you know a credit union innovator who I should interview, please e-mail me at tmcalpine at currencymarketing dot ca.

Production notes

If you are considering producing your own podcasts, here are my production notes. It took a fair amount of digging to figure out a good way to produce these without having to lug around a bunch of gear. I found it really difficult to get clear answers on all this stuff. Hopefully my research can save you some time!

Gene actually recommended the Microtrack to me awhile ago—it is a very cool device. Man, that guy knows everything!

I chose Audacity because it is very simple for a non-audio engineer like me and it is free.

I chose Evoca because I can easily embed audio clips on our blog and Evoca also provides an RSS feed for selected files at reasonable cost. And there are some really cool recording options with Skype that will come in handy for future long-distance interviews.

And, finally, after all that, I am using Feedburner to see if anyone actually listens and downloads our podcasts. Having never gone through the process before, I was surprised that both Evoca and iTunes do not track the number of listeners or downloads. Feedburner also helps you put your RSS feed information together properly so your podcast artwork and details display correctly in iTunes and on iPods. The most time-consuming part was getting the feed approved by Apple—it took five days. I guess they were pretty busy with Macworld to worry about me.

I swear, the tangle that is Web 2.0 boggles my mind sometimes. It has been an adventure figuring all of this stuff out. Kind of fun, but mostly painful.

Go easy on me!

My interviewing skills are not at Oprah or Letterman level yet, but I think my first attempt is alright! Hope you enjoy it. Want to really make my day? Write a (positive) review in iTunes!